A virtual who's who of feminist academics gathered at the Barnard College
campus to relive the old days a bit and recharge their batteries for current equity battles within the ivory tower
and beyond.
NEW YORK (WOMENSENEWS)--The doyennes of the women's movement in academia and progeny came together here on a warm
summer weekend to remember the battles of the past and fortify themselves for the work still to be done.

The heady days when "Our Bodies, Ourselves" was first published were recalled, as were the bad old days
when discrimination was not thought to apply to women. At the same time, these academics issued challenges for
their colleagues to reconsider their roles within educational institutions and not to sacrifice activism and passion
to academe and scholarly treatises.

The recent convention of what its members wryly call the Veteran Feminists of America, held at Barnard College
campus in June, honored educators active during one of the most intense periods of feminist scholarship: 1967 to
1977.

The 130 veterans who attended represented a virtual who's who in scholarly feminism. The celebration included a
panel on "Feminist Education: Old Frontiers and New," organized by Sheila Tobias, author of "Overcoming
Math Anxiety" and "Faces of Feminism." It featured Bernice Sandler, senior scholar at the Women's
Research and Education Institute in Washington, who was instrumental in the development and passage of federal
law requiring gender equity in education; Nancy Hoffman of Brown University, who made connections among expanded
careers for women, the low social value accorded teaching and a teacher shortage that threatens the future of the
country; and sociologist Lenore Weitzman, who has examined the disparate consequences of gender on subjects ranging
from divorce to the Holocaust.

Sheila Tobias

Florence Howe, founder of the Feminist Press and the Women's Studies Newsletter,
which later became the Women's Studies Quarterly, also was honored. Janet Jakobsen, a younger feminist who is director
of the Center for Women's Studies at Barnard College, cited her experience as a token lesbian feminist professor
of women's studies to point out some of the pitfalls of progress.

Veteran Feminists of America is a nonprofit organization for pioneers and veterans of the Second Wave of the feminist
movement, including women and men, especially from 1963 to 1973, although it includes others who share a commitment
to feminist activism. It seeks to renew the spirit of commitment to a cause, to honor the pioneers' accomplishments
and pass the torch to a younger feminist generation. Current projects include a directory, "The Women's Movement:
Pioneers of the Second Wave 1963-1973. "

In 1969 Terms Like 'Sexual Harassment,' 'Sex Discrimination' Didn't Exist
The afternoon panelists and the evening awards ceremony recalled the beginnings of the women's movement with an
immediacy that evoked the excitement and frustrations of those early days.

"In 1969 words like sexual harassment and sex discrimination hadn't been invented yet," Sandler recalled.
"There were no newsletters about women, no conferences about women and there were no laws prohibiting discrimination
against women and girls. There was no equal pay act and no such thing as discrimination based on gender on the
books. Today, we have the best set of laws in the world on sexual discrimination, although they are not always
enforced."

Bernice Sandler

Sandler also detailed the widespread discrimination against women in the ivory
towers. For example, before 1967, the Cornell School of Veterinary Medicine accepted only two women each year,
no matter how many female candidates applied. Now, up to 75 percent of all veterinary students are women, and Cornell's
numbers now are high.

And Sandler recalled the time when pregnant teachers were forced to resign, when women faculty could not join the
faculty club but only the faculty wives' club and when male professors and department heads would routinely announce,
"We will never allow women to get tenure in our department."

Things began to change--women faculty and students banded together and began to organize, first in their own disciplines,
then outside their departments and then outside the university, Sandler said.

Today, 600 Women's Studies Programs, Thousands of Courses
The activism did not stop at equal opportunity and equal pay, however. Feminist academics created their own courses
and researched topics that had long been ignored. Sandler recalled that in 1969, only a handful of colleges offered
women's studies. Now there are thousands of courses within 600 programs on campuses nationwide.

Jakobsen, director of Barnard's women's studies center, recalled the activist nature of much of the research in
the early days, such as "Our Bodies, Ourselves," a book that almost single-handedly changed many women's
expectations of their medical professionals and women's own attitudes about their bodies.

Times changed, and the demands for women's and homosexual rights became commonplace and often intertwined on the
nation's campuses. Jakobsen found herself teaching at the University of Arizona. Much to her surprise, even though
it was a state-supported institution in a region known for its political conservatism, she did not experience discrimination
because she was openly a lesbian.

Rather, she said, she felt as if she had been "embraced by the university" as their "poster girl
for domestic partnerships" and "tokenized with my public status as a lesbian."

She found herself being called by everyone for information on anything related to gender issues, she said. At that
time, the university had found a real person who could also be used as a symbol of the institution's progressiveness,
Jakobsen said, adding that her identity was being used to further the legitimacy of an institution, and she questioned
how such appropriation could be avoided. "Was my being out really a political challenge to the State of Arizona?"
she asked, or by being openly lesbian did she provide the university a symbol of acceptance that did not reflect
the reality?

In a sign of how much the situation has changed since Jakobsen's years there, the University of Arizona has launched
the Millennium Project to study the work life of all faculty at the university's 15 schools, including gender inequities
in salaries, research funds and laboratory space. The project follows on the heels of an unprecedented acknowledgement
of sexism in academia. Nine of the nation's most prestigious science and engineering colleges pledged to rectify
bias against women by working toward diversity, fairer pay and more family-friendly work conditions.

Even Progressive School Reformers Focus on Race, Poverty--Not Gender Equity
Another prominent scholar, Nancy Hoffman, professor of education at Brown University, added that when education
for elementary and secondary schools is discussed, even the most progressive school reformers focus on the impact
of race and poverty--and rarely raise issues related to gender equity. If the well-being of girls in urban schools
is discussed, she said, too often the talk is about "protecting their bodies, not their intellects."

Hoffman said too many women teachers fail to see a connection between their low status and pay and how their girl
students perceive them.

"Women teachers don't think about what their working conditions mean to young girls in the classroom,"
she said. That might change now that the shortage of teachers is gaining more attention, Hoffman added, even as
she pleaded with her colleagues to encourage their students who wish to go into teaching.

"Feminists need to think of teachers as colleagues in a more profound way," she said.